This blog is a chronicle of my thoughts and photographs pertaining to the two TPLO surgeries that Ivy, my Labrador Retriever had performed on February 11, 2008 by Dr. Robert Pernell of Coastal Carolina Veterinary Specialists, N. Charleston, SC and on October 9, 2008 by Dr. Jeff Stallings of Tidewater Veterinary Surgery, Virginia Beach, VA. Ivy is a 7 year old, 63 pound, spayed female yellow Labrador Retriever. She is one very brave dog.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

On May 31, 2013 we made the painful and difficult decision to end Ivy's life. She had been vomiting and had stopped eating several days before.....very unusual for a Lab. The emergency vet had determined she was in severe liver failure. She was listless and her gums were yellow. We called our regular vet in Chesapeake and he agreed with our decision.
It was such a long drive to his office. They quickly got us in a room and our vet's wife came in and told us how sorry she was. We were all in tears. We were with Ivy when she passed as we wanted her to know how much we loved her. I had my hands on her and felt her last breath. We signed off to have her individually cremated and, with heavy hearts, drove home.
We picked up her cremains several days later. Always the skeptic, I went through the ashes, and came up with the TPLO surgical hardware. I knew it was Ivy and that provided a strange source of comfort.
Her TPLO surgeries gave her an excellent quality of life. She would be considered a "senior" dog by many at the time of her surgeries. I would not change a thing. TPLO was the right choice for our Ivy. It gave her a great quality of life. She never limped again and was able to run and swim until a couple of weeks before her death, at age 11. Fly on your angel wings, sweet Ivy!

A note about this blog

If you are reading this blog for the first time, I urge you to start at the beginning (it reads backwards and I don't know how to change it). For whatever reason, some of the earlier photos are missing, possibly due to some changes Blogger has made over the years. I am trying to recover and republish those photos.

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About Me

I'm a Certified Virginia Master Naturalist,
board member with the Virginia Beach Audubon Society, member of the
Virginia Society of Ornithology, member of the Butterfly Society of
Virginia, and a member of Back Bay Restoration Foundation.
Additionally, I volunteer for the Virginia Beach SPCA, Lynnhaven
River NOW, and the City of Virginia Beach.

I am a photography enthusiast and I am indeed fortunate that many of my photos of native birds and
wildlife have appeared in local publications. For the last several
years, my photos of local Virginia Beach Bald Eagles have appeared in
the Garden of Eagles calendar, an international publication. My husband Joe and I live on the Signature at West Neck with our two dogs,
Mocha and Frodo.